Wednesday, December 30, 2009

UPDATE: Randolph Duke

Back in December of 2008, red carpet dress dee-ziner and HSN habiliment hawker Randoph Duke listed his cantilevered and aggressively cuspidated Los Angeles house with a searing asking price of $8,250,000. Later, in June of 2009, Miss Duke slashed the price tag of the 3 bedroom and 3.5 pooper property to $6,500,000.

It was shortly after that that Your Mama schlepped our fat ass through and around the 3 bedroom and 3.5 pooperXTEN Architecture designed house in the Hollywood Hills. Here's what we recall from our visit: The street on which the contemporary crib is located–anorexically narrow Fareholm Drive–offers residents undeniably spectacular views but cosmetically it's not a very attractive or particularly upscale appearing street despite its most famous fat livin' inhabitant, attention craving Kanye West who resides in a multi-floor modern a few curves down the street.

We also recall the angular residence had a driveway far to small to turn a car around–although one just wide enough for someone to back out a gleaming, white Rolls Royce Phantom, that most of the glass walls slid open making for a truly seamless integration of the interior spaces with the exterior terraces, patios, swimming pool and spa and that the master bedroom, despite its lack of an actual door for privacy, is a Sybarite's paradise with huge views, a fireplace for romantical evenings, plenty of storage for an entire wardrobe of his SPIRITED line of ladees duds, a large bathroom and several private terraces including one tucked up behind the house that connects to the outdoor dining room located off one end of the living room.

Anyhoo, thanks to Emily Emailer and confirmed with property records, Your Mama can tell you that Miss Duke finally sold the house in early December 2009 for–drum roll please–$5,300,000. Now chickens, five and some million bucks is a lot of damn dollars but a few flicks of the well worn beads on our bejeweled abacus reveals that it's also just 64% of the original asking price. We're certain Miss Duke and all his accountants and real estate people are thrilled the house sold, but surely it stings just a little to get so much less than was desired.

14 comments:

Anonymous
said...

This is one of the most glorious LA houses you've featured in a long time. The lines! The views! Apparently that's what you're paying for. It's just beautifully designed. Poor darling Duke must be royally pissed at that 64%. He's had a string of bad luck lately.

I would imagine the slashed price is due to the current climate rather than the house itself. It's one of the nicest new builds I've seen in LA - it really is stunning, minus Duke's furniture. I agree about Fareholm, amazing views ugly street.

You can find a lot of good shots of this house in the Ashton Kutcher movie, "Spread." This house was pretty awseome and the views were incredible. The only negative would be the kitchen, in my opinion.

No big surprise on the price drop. It will be interesting to see the discussion on housing prices, (of all types and pedigree) next year at this time.Me thinks there will be lots of celebs and we mere peasants alike crying boo hoo.

1) It was - actually - a little run down. Felt like a house that threw one too many parties, saw one too many late nights. A light "paint and shine" polish would have helped before listing.

2) It was VERY "specific" - not just is style, but in layout. Too many things you couldn't change.

3) Bad end of a "B" street. $5MM is a HUGE number for Fareholm. This house was kind of designed for the Birds, Sunset Plaza, etc. Most celebs even round Fareholm are more low key/low dollar. The $2MM for the Neutra at the other end was a "big number" for the hood.

4) Lot/driveway issues.

$5MM felt STRONG for this house. Look at the House Billy Rose sold on Skyline. Laurel Adjacent (really Mt. Olympus adjacent here) has it's dollar limits. At the HEIGHT, Dave Ramser sold Ellen the Marmol for $6.5MM. That's as good as it got.

Too much focus on "List versus Sold." The first number isn't a market. Prior vs. Sold is the market. People talk about the big hacks off Listed/Sold instead of looking at the other.